"This isn't even that hard!" Ricken exclaimed with a smile as he sent a blast of Arcwind at one of the archers on the ramparts, breaking his neck as he landed on the ground inside the fort. The assault on the bandits' fortress had gone very well so far – despite their decent strategic formation, the bandits themselves weren't very strong. This meant that Hale didn't have to worry about arranging people too much, since brute forcing their way through enemies would save time and didn't pose a significant risk. He imagined Morgan would do the same, assuming her end was as weak as this one.
"Indeed. This hardly merited my coming all the way out here." Maribelle said as she directed Arcfire at two swordsmen coming at her, both of which fell immediately after being struck. From behind her, a mage commanded a bolt of Elthunder to strike her on the head; she chuckled as she noticed the air around her charging and whispered a few words to redirect the electricity into the ground. She turned her mount around and narrowed her eyes at the mage, whose eyes widened as he saw that his attack did nothing.
"Are you trying to make my hair stand on end? Let's see how you like it!" She took out her Arcthunder tome and called down three bolts of electricity on the enemy mage, which all connected and put him out of commission.
"Come on! We need to keep moving forward!" Hale called from the front, where Chrom and Laurent had finished taking down the array of soldiers in the corridor. Ricken and Maribelle directed their horses to follow.
"Hey, Maribelle. I've been thinking about what you said to me before. About… having pride in my family name despite our financial difficulties. It's not just about having the name of a noble; it's about having the attitude!" He paused for a moment.
She had deflected a magic attack without even looking – and was repeatedly shown in training sessions back home that she had the highest resistance to magic damage out of anyone. She knew exactly what to say to a fussy noble, and always conducted herself with the knowledge that she was valuable no matter what anyone said. Their tea times had slowly convinced him that they ought to be something more than good friends, but did she feel the same way?
"Ricken? Lost in thought again, dear?" He blinked and noticed that they both had stopped at the end of the corridor, where Hale was considering what to do at one of the fort's inner junctions. He blushed and turned away from Maribelle.
"Um, I guess. Actually, after this is over, when we get back home… we need to talk. It's really, really important." Maribelle raised an eyebrow.
"If you say so. Come. It looks like Hale has decided what we should do next." The tactician had decided that splitting up the army further was fine, as long as a healer was in each party. Hale would accompany Ricken and Maribelle, and Laurent and Chrom would travel together. Ricken had secretly bought a ring a few days ago, the same day he had verified that he had, in fact, grown significantly taller. It had his family crest on it and everything. It had completely depleted his personal savings, but he felt it was worth it. Hopefully, it would be.
"Seriously, which one of these losers thought it would be a good idea to mess with the people of Ylisse?" Vaike asked as he kicked over the body of one of the soldiers he had just chopped into pieces.
"Yeah, you would think they'd have heard about all the people we beat and just surrender." Lissa commented. She hadn't needed to use her healing staff at all throughout the mission – even Vaike, who normally took a few minor wounds from fighting aggressively, didn't need any healing. When Hale decided he was ready to get stronger with a Master Seal, he had asked the tactician what options he had. He refused the option of learning how to use a bow, insisting that focusing on fighting with an axe would eventually make him the best axe-wielder in history. That had culminated in demanding a duel with Basilio after Grima was killed, but he had never gotten around to arranging it.
"There's always someone who thinks they can get away with it. But no one crosses what my father cares about. I've noticed they don't usually live to tell the tale." Morgan added, keeping the formation behind Kellam as she guided him through the fort's corridors. The bandits had put up their best fight, but they were clearly no match for the Shepherds. Even Lissa, who had learned how to use axes as a means of self-defense rather than offense, could take them down without too much trouble.
"Look at that door." Kellam pointed with his free hand towards one of the wooden doors that lined the corridor. The rest of them had been opened to make sure reinforcements or prisoners weren't inside, but this particular door had not only been opened, it had been blown off its hinges and was laying on the floor, shards of it scattered about.
"You don't suppose Father's forces have already been here, have they? Maybe they encountered some hidden enemy that tried to surprise them by throwing the door open at them." Morgan suggested. Kellam approached the opening where the door had been and immediately jumped back, a flaming arrow whizzing by his helmet and breaking apart against the wall.
"That is most unusual. Where would an enemy procure the materials to launch ignited ammunition around here?" Miriel said.
"I don't know, but Vaike, come with me. Lissa, Miriel, you watch our backs as we enter, in case we need any healing. Kellam, um… make sure nobody else comes." The door was only wide enough to let one person through at a time, but if Vaike threw an axe inside, the enemy would have to get out of its way long enough for two people to get in.
"Vaike, throw one of your hand axes into the room. Then we'll run inside and take down the enemy." He nodded and heaved a throwing axe into the room, the axe bouncing off the wall as they ran inside.
"Uh, Morgan… I think we're in trouble." Vaike muttered nervously as he noticed the same thing Morgan did: three archers with flaming arrows pointed at them. These weren't the same archers that they had killed with impunity earlier, either: each one looked experienced and wielded a type of bow that allowed for two shots at once, called a Brave Bow due to how difficult it was to use. The other Shepherds could only see Morgan giving them a look warning them not to enter, and tensed as they saw the room light up from the arrows.
"Who are you? You're not the bandits that have been occupying this place." A young woman's voice barked from behind the left side of the archers. Morgan tried to get her mind off of the fact that these archers, most likely snipers as their flaming-arrow-loaded Brave Bows indicated, could skewer her six ways to the grave in the blink of an eye. She took a deep breath and looked towards the source of the voice. The woman had black hair, and looked about as old as Chrom did. She herself wielded a Brave Bow, though her arrows weren't on fire. She seemed to be about as tall as Hale.
"Answer me, or you will regret having intruded here!"
"Okay. No, we aren't bandits. We're part of Chrom's Shepherds, Ylisse's protection force. We came here to drive a group of bandits away from the country. You don't look like one, and neither do your friends. We don't have to fight each other." She spoke curtly, quickly, as her father had told her. Don't be vague, and stick to the point. Stay calm. Don't give the other party a reason to be distrustful of you.
"Hmph. Then it was your group responsible for all the racket outside. We had been waiting for an opportunity to escape. Stand down, then." The young woman lowered her bow and snapped her fingers. Suddenly, the three snipers that had been taking aim at Vaike and Morgan evaporated into thin air, leaving behind the young woman and another figure that had been slumping against the wall, crying.
"What was that? How did you do that?" Vaike asked, sweeping his free hand where the snipers had been. The young woman opened her cloak to reveal an unusual rose-colored tome.
"I'm an illusionist. This one… has the gift of seeing through illusions." She reached down to gently shake the shoulder of the crying figure.
"It's okay. They're not here to hurt us. You can get up now." The figure wiped her tears and took the young woman's hand, standing up and revealing that she had the exact same face. Twins, Morgan thought – except the one with the bow and the tome looked to be at least six or seven years older. Lissa and Miriel walked in, noticing that the situation had defused.
"I'm Mina. She is… also Mina. It's a long story. But I can explain that to you later. First, we need to get out of here." The older Mina took the younger's hand and made for the door.
"You'll have to excuse her. She's been through a lot lately, and won't speak or make contact with anyone other than me. We'll follow you until you've gotten rid of all the bandits. And you all are?" Vaike was the first to introduce himself, grinning and waving at the two Minas.
"Name's Vaike! Good to see you're on our side, at least for the time being."
"I'm Chrom's sister, Lissa. If either of you need any healing, just let me know."
"I am Miriel. I believe I have heard of illusion being a type of learned magic, but you are the first illusionist I have personally seen. If necessary, I am also capable of healing your wounds, though I would defer to Lissa as she has more experience with it than I."
"My name is Morgan. Perhaps you've heard of my father, Hale? He's been Ylisse's tactician for over two years now, and has led its army to victory over Plegia, Valm, and even Grima himself." The older Mina looked at her younger self, whose eyes had been glued to Morgan ever since she stood up. They whispered to each other for a moment.
"Not quite. We're not… from your world. But we do know of you, Morgan. Listen, this isn't the time to talk about it. We should go and get rid of the bandits first." Mina walked out of the room with her younger self.
"I'm Kellam. I've been standing guard out here for the past few minutes." The knight said as the illusionist came out. The rest of the Shepherds followed, and Morgan decided to put the Minas alongside Lissa in the middle of the formation as they continued through the fort.
"Good. I don't think the enemies around here would want to break their weapons on your armor." Mina commented. The younger Mina leaned in and whispered something to her, which prompted the older one to speak up.
"The younger me says that we should call her Jasmine. I don't know if your world has this as a custom, but people in mine are typically given multiple names when they're born. We were both named Mina Jasmine. That should clear up any confusion as to who you're referring to."
"We're more familiar with this kind of scenario than you think. I'm actually from the future of this timeline, but we can talk about that later. Look! There are more enemies up ahead." Morgan pointed to a well-lit opening at the end of the corridor. The enemy had knights at the front, with archers and mages behind them. Not too hard to break through, she thought.
"Morgan, if you need me to, I can summon illusions to distract the enemy. Just call for it."
"Alright. We won't need it right now. Kellam! Throw one of your spears over the knights at that mage!" Kellam nodded and chucked a spear, which flew over the enemy knight and skewered the mage in the chest, knocking him down. Vaike and Kellam began fighting the knights, while Miriel and Morgan took care of the ranged enemies. The bandits were dead in minutes, and as the Shepherds progressed further into the castle, Morgan noticed Jasmine shivering and clinging to Mina.
"What's wrong?"
"She's not used to seeing people die like this, even if they do deserve it." The group progressed into the opening and found it led into a huge armory, full of weapons and gold. Stacks of crates were arranged in a grid, making many miniature corridors out of the room. All of this stuff had to be worth ten of thousands in gold, Morgan thought.
"This must be their stash, huh?" Vaike asked. From atop her horse, Morgan could see her father's tacky outfit appearing from another entrance across the room.
"Yeah. Father!" Morgan called from the other side of the room. Hale noticed that her forces had made it through alright, and that everyone had arrived at what appeared to be the last bastion of any enemy forces.
"Wait. Did we already get rid of all the bandits?" Ricken asked. The Shepherds merged at Morgan's corner of the room. She looked at her father, both of them feeling a sense of uneasiness at the fact that no enemies had shown themselves.
"Okay. I think we should sweep the room and make sure no one else is here." Hale said.
"Yeah. Be careful, everyone. Kellam, Chrom, you two watch the exits. The rest of us will clear the room." As the army began to spread out, Hale noticed a pair of identical-looking sisters standing next to Kellam. They must have been imprisoned here, he thought. He would have to ask them some questions later. He turned around and noticed a shadow race across the ceiling towards Kellam. A figure landed on top of one of the crates and fired an arrow not at him, but at the younger girl.
"Kellam! Watch out!" He yelled, readying a cast of Arcwind to attempt to blow the cloaked figure off of the crates. Kellam attempted to jump in front of the arrow, but Mina saw it coming before he did and turned inwards to protect Jasmine, the arrow piercing Mina's shoulder. Jasmine let out a scream loud enough to draw everyone's attention, and the figure threw its cloak off in a dramatic fashion, leaping to another crate and dodging Hale's attack in the process. It revealed a brown-skinned, woman with long, black hair sporting a sly smile on her face, who immediately pulled a staff from her back and cast a shield around herself.
"I should've… known you'd be here!" Mina said as Lissa ran over to her. Three magic attacks flew at the shield and were absorbed, causing the staff that generated it to glow and restore its power.
"You are so lucky these people are here to save you. And that these stupid bandits held me up long enough for them to get to you before I did. What a waste of space those cretins were." Lissa carefully removed the arrow from Mina's shoulder and healed the wound, allowing her to stand up straight again. Jasmine's face was buried in her chest, the younger girl shaking with fear at the woman's voice.
"What is it going to take for you to forgive me, Katrina? She hasn't even done anything to you!" Katrina glared at Mina holding Jasmine close to her, the shield absorbing another round of magic blasts. Morgan was surprised that the barrier could withstand the combined might of her, Miriel, Laurent, Ricken, and Maribelle. Whoever this Katrina person was, she was incredibly skilled at using staves and resisting magic.
"She's still you. And you know why she has to die. But today, you've escaped what you deserve. If any of the rest of you gets between me and them, you won't survive." Katrina knocked the bottom of the staff against the crate and warped away, leaving the Shepherds with far more questions than they came in with. They all looked to Mina, who was still trying to comfort Jasmine.
"I'll explain what's going on once you get us somewhere safe." The illusionist turned her head to look at Morgan, who was confused as to why she had heard of her and not her father.
"We can take you back to Ylisstol, if you have no place else to go. That assassin doesn't look like she ought to be trifled with, so we will continue to guard you two for now." Chrom stated. If Frederick was here, he would immediately voice his objections to doing so, especially after witnessing that there was someone competent out to kill them. But he had been assigned to lead the recruits' training back in Ylisstol, which was a job he definitely looked forward to doing. Still, that only delayed his inevitable lecture.
A/N: If Mina was an in-game unit, her class would be Illusionist. Katrina is a cross between an Assassin and a Trickster, which I'll call the Hunter class. I think you've noticed that these chapters are getting progressively longer. Not a bad thing, but I'll try to keep individual updates from going over 5,000 words. As before, if you've got something to say about this story, feel free to say it in a review. Next update coming soon!